Biden set to crash Republican convention in Tampa

MINNEAPOLIS -- Vice President Joe Biden will join the thousands of Republicans set to descend on Tampa next week for their national convention.

"Any of you going to be in Florida?" Joe Biden joked to reporters after stopping at football practice at South High School in Minneapolis, MN. "Well, I'm the speaker at the convention, so I'm gonna be down there."

Campaign officials confirmed earlier Tuesday that Biden will attend campaign events in Tampa and other cities next week, coinciding with the Republican National Convention in the Florida city.

In a counterprogramming effort to Mitt Romney's formal acceptance of his party's nomination, Biden will appear in the area Monday and Tuesday.

The choice of Biden -- who caused a days-long uproar last week by suggesting that Republicans and Wall Street would "put y'all back in chains" -- signals that Biden is not stepping back from an aggressive role as the tip of the campaign's spear in attacking the GOP ticket.

That aggressiveness was on display Tuesday at a campaign rally in Minnesota, where Biden jabbed at Romney for "changing his tune" on China after comparing the opposite party to "squealing pigs" over their objections to Wall Street reforms.

"Over the objections where they sound like squealing pigs, over the objections of Romney and all his allies, we passed some of the toughest Wall Street regulations in history," Biden told a crowd of over a thousand at The Depot in downtown Minneapolis.

The vice president poked fun at Romney for past instances of changing political positions.